Joe Public blames banks for credit card fraud

Over half of all consumers (54%) feel that banks and building societies aren't doing enough to protect them from credit and debit card fraud, according to the results of a survey published today.

Although the survey (conducted last month) didn't quiz members of the public on the Chip and PIN programme, a serious omission in our view, it still provides some insight into public perceptions about credit card fraud.

The chip and PIN system is designed to guard against credit card fraud by requiring customers to tap in a four digit number - rather than signing a payment slip - when paying for their goods. The system is currently on trial in Northampton but will be nationwide by 2005, as credit cards wiith embedded smart cards are issued throughout the UK.

Depending on your point of view, this is either a great leap forward in the fight against fraud or a scheme that will shift the burden of proving fraud has taken place onto consumers while moving criminal scams from the high street onto the Internet.

Spotlight

35 percent of employees would sell information on company patents, financial records and customer credit card details if the price was right. This illustrates the growing importance for organizations to deploy data loss prevention strategies.

Sun Tzu's writings have been studied throughout the ages by professional militaries and can used to not only answer the question of whether or not we are in a cyberwar, but how one can fight a cyber-battle.

Infosec consultant Paul Moore came up with a working solution to thwart a type of behavioral profiling. The result is a Chrome extension called Keyboard Privacy, which prevents profiling of users by the way they type by randomizing the rate at which characters reach the DOM.

There is still way too much apathy when it comes to data-centric security. Given the sensitive data the OPM was tasked with protecting, it should have had state-of-the-art data protection, but instead it has become the poster child for IT security neglect.